Replaced by whom I wonder? Death threats lol? Since when did threats from a few looney toons ever stop a large company? Business would collapse as we we know it, if every company/ corporation closed or ran away every time they got a threat

TheRedStar

Guest

I'm inclined to wonder whether Atos has come to see itself as taking a disproportionate amount of flak for what, fundamentally, is government policy with a clearly biased agenda behind it. Of course, Atos wasn't forced to take the contract, and the company hasn't helped itself (massive understatement...), but when all's said and done they're only doing what their employers - the Coalition government - want them to do; boot as many people off of the more expensive benefits (DLA/ESA/Incapacity Benefit) as possible and shift them onto JSA - which is cheaper and easier to arbitrarily sanction - and to generally scare benefit claimants en masse.

Let's face it - they've become the Boogeyman to a lot of people like us, and have done plenty to deserve that image, but we should never forget who their Westminster puppetmasters and enablers are. Nor should we forget that it was Labour who originally contracted Atos, and indeed who came up with the WCA in the first place.

While I agree with BillFish that a few threats rarely stop big business, I think this situation goes beyond that for Atos and has become a massive image problem for the company. For the foreseeable future - long after the WCA contract is terminated - Atos will be associated with incompetence at best, and with driving people to suicide at worst. Unless they change their name at some point, I'd imagine very few people in this country would want to conduct business with them in any way for a very long time... Atos has become a very tainted brand, and no business wants or needs that on the kind of scale it has reached.

Given reports of Atos workers in Southend joining the protest outside their own office two days ago, I'm also inclined - perhaps naively - to wonder whether a sense of conscience has developed within the company about what they're doing?

The government can say what it likes about itself being unhappy with Atos, but I strongly suspect that's a ploy to divert attention away from their own contribution to the situation - blaming the contractors for doing a dodgy job stops people from focusing on the fact that the task Atos was contracted to do was fundamentally dodgy in itself. As such, I'd advise people to not hold their breath that whoever picks up the WCA contract will be much better, if any better at all... remember - it'll still be the same neoliberal wankers calling the shots behind them, toff inheritance millionaires who think anybody that's not working is a 'useless eater'.

zoomz

Well-known member

I'm inclined to wonder whether Atos has come to see itself as taking a disproportionate amount of flak for what, fundamentally, is government policy with a clearly biased agenda behind it. Of course, Atos wasn't forced to take the contract, and the company hasn't helped itself (massive understatement...), but when all's said and done they're only doing what their employers - the Coalition government - want them to do; boot as many people off of the more expensive benefits (DLA/ESA/Incapacity Benefit) as possible and shift them onto JSA - which is cheaper and easier to arbitrarily sanction - and to generally scare benefit claimants en masse.

Let's face it - they've become the Boogeyman to a lot of people like us, and have done plenty to deserve that image, but we should never forget who their Westminster puppetmasters and enablers are. Nor should we forget that it was Labour who originally contracted Atos, and indeed who came up with the WCA in the first place.

While I agree with BillFish that a few threats rarely stop big business, I think this situation goes beyond that for Atos and has become a massive image problem for the company. For the foreseeable future - long after the WCA contract is terminated - Atos will be associated with incompetence at best, and with driving people to suicide at worst. Unless they change their name at some point, I'd imagine very few people in this country would want to conduct business with them in any way for a very long time... Atos has become a very tainted brand, and no business wants or needs that on the kind of scale it has reached.

Given reports of Atos workers in Southend joining the protest outside their own office two days ago, I'm also inclined - perhaps naively - to wonder whether a sense of conscience has developed within the company about what they're doing?

The government can say what it likes about itself being unhappy with Atos, but I strongly suspect that's a ploy to divert attention away from their own contribution to the situation - blaming the contractors for doing a dodgy job stops people from focusing on the fact that the task Atos was contracted to do was fundamentally dodgy in itself. As such, I'd advise people to not hold their breath that whoever picks up the WCA contract will be much better, if any better at all... remember - it'll still be the same neoliberal wankers calling the shots behind them, toff inheritance millionaires who think anybody that's not working is a 'useless eater'.

SomersetScorpio

Well-known member

Funny, my initial thought was "Hooray!" and that the protests that were held may have actually been listened to.
But then I thought.. hold on, they'll just get someone else in to do the job. This isn't ending anything. Who knows, it might even be a company that's worse.

TheRedStar is right. The aTossers are just doing what's asked of them. I don't think it's officially been admitted, but i'm convinced that they have a target number of people to find "fit for work" whether they are or not.
The government ultimately are responsible, and I think we'll be in exactly the same boat but just with a different company. x

K

Katss

ACCOUNT CLOSED

Let's see, it had to fall apart at some point, why employ an outside, no zenofobia intended but a French owned agency to assess people who were and are already assessed to see if they are eligible for a small amount of benefits to live? Worst they Atos, were allegedly paid some ridiculous exorbitent fee like millions more like billions to so called get people off of benefits?

You can say A**% were doing what was asked of them, but they were more than happy to put themselves forward for a seemingly not possible task, and were well up for targeting vulnerable, sick, ill, and disabled individuals and hound them for what? being disabled and or sick and or mentally distressed? Oh very honourable.

Where oh where was the logic there then? Like where? The whole govt initiative to reform sickness benefits has cost something like over £550 per person they want to ridicule? *that is a lot of milions* plus the failed technological application that was gonna get them what they wanted is all caput and has also cost millions? Why is no one taking the govt to court for failing on all accounts?

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